


New Year's Fireworks

by Measured_Words



Category: Changeling: the Dreaming
Genre: Bread, Dinner Parties, F/M, Fake Fantasy Mark Hamill, Fireworks, Friendship, New Year's Eve, New Year's Traditions, Webercon Whidbey Changeling Game, flan - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:23:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22960144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured_Words/pseuds/Measured_Words
Summary: Trolius invites his friends over for a quiet gathering to ring in the New Year
Relationships: Anand Darach/Lugh Lamber Mac Cillian, Trolius Eiluned/Lou Masters
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	New Year's Fireworks

Annie and Lambert arrived together just before eight – the first of the small number of invited guests. Trolius was more or less ready for them, with only a few last-minute preparations to pull together for the dinner, and one more thing he could use a hand with anyway.

"Hey guys, come on in!"

"Thanks." Annie smiles and gestured with the dish in her hands and the load of bread in Lambert's. "Where can we put this?"

"Oh – just on the kitchen island is great." Trolius stepped aside to let them through, wondering what exactly they needed half a dozen baguettes for. "What did you bring?"

"Flan. Seemed…. Well I was going to say appropriate but judging by your face I'd say it was definitely the right choice."

"Annie." He wasn't going to mention how many eggs he'd wasted that afternoon – something about custard remained elusive. "Flan is my favourite. I could kiss you, except I might get murdered." He grinned, but his expression turned more affectionate as he saw Lou's truck pull into the drive way. "Double murdered."

"Well, if you get murdered, that's just more for the rest of us." Lambert set down the dish and looked around, adjusting the scarf around his neck. It was striped in his House colours, and somewhat rustic looking. "Something else smells good though – what are we eating?"

"Ahh. Enchiladas."

"Yeah?" Lambert frowned skeptically. "You don't seem real sure."

Trolius sighed. "I started to make bacalao, but I've never made it before, and then I panicked that no one would like it anyway."

"Ooooh, ambitious." Annie nodded. "Very traditional."

"What's baca-whatever?"

"It's like a fish stew thing. I did finish it but…. Then I made enchiladas, because who doesn't like enchiladas? No one."

"I like enchiladas," Lou said, strolling in the door carrying a couple of 6-packs. "Is that what were having?"

"Yes." Trolius leaned over to greet her with a kiss. "I think we're still waiting on Darian, though."

"Okay, I'm gonna put these in the fridge." She held up the beer with a grin and a wave at the others as she breezed past them towards the kitchen. "Hey guys."

"Hey Lam," Trolius asked, his failed kitchen experiments hopefully forgotten for now, "can I get a hand with something?"

* * *

"You're sure this is going to fit?" Lambert, holding up one end of the smaller couch, eyed the doorway dubiously.

"Well, I measured it twice. We just need to get the feet in, and then just.. turn it like…. Yeah!"

Maneuvering the rest of the couch into the studio room went more smoothly, though it was still a tight squeeze. After it was in, it didn't take long for them to set up the computer monitor so they could tune in to one of the countdown streams later.

"Why are do doing this, again?

"Well, you know what they say about fireworks holidays…" Trolius looked up from fiddling with the HDMI connection to his laptop, and gave an ironic grin. "Bring your vets inside."

"Lou gets freaked out by fireworks?" Lambert shrugged, then frowned. "But then she can still fire off a few rounds in a hallway right beside my head."

"That's different – it was an actual fight." And neither he nor Lou had been super great afterwards, but there was no sense getting into that. Instead, Trolius grinned again. "Besides she was like…. Right beside your armpit at best."

"Pfft. Are we all going to fit in here?"

"It'll be cozy, but sure. I mean, we don't all have to, but it should be comfy enough."

"Yeah, we'll see if Old Man Darian even makes it to midnight – he looks pretty wrecked."

"We'll see if he makes it through dinner." Trolius stood back up, brushing off his jeans.

"Fuckin' *Randy*, amirite?"

"Fuckin' Randy."

* * *

Dinner itself went fine – the enchiladas were declared delicious. Annie and Darian insisted they wanted to try the bacalao, but the verdict was that the fish had needed too be soaked longer and was still too salty. Annie's flan was excellent, though of course not quite as good as his mama's, and Darian had brought some nice wine that complemented everything nicely. Lambert, however, insisted that they hold off on having any of the bread.

"We need it for something after dinner," he explained.

Once they were full of wine, beer, and flan, he elected to demonstrate. "It's a good luck thing. you’re supposed to hit all the doors and walls with it. Scares away evil spirits."  
"That sounds fun, actually," Darian said, picking up one of the leftover baguettes.

"Sure, have at – just let's not knock too much off the walls." Trolius shrugged, choosing his weapon. "I'm gonna make you guys eat a bunch of grapes later, so fair's fair."

"Grapes?" Lou also grabbed a loaf.

"It's for good luck," Annie explained. "You have a minute to eat twelve of them at midnight." She smiled, picking up the last of the bread. "It's harder than it sounds, though."

"Sounds like a challenge – but I might have other traditions to be partaking in." He smiled back at Annie, managing to look lascivious and completely enamoured at the same time. She laughed.

"Well – we have a whole minute. Maybe we can try both. Now, do we all have to hit each wall or can we divvy up the important duty of ridding Mark Hamill's house of any evil spirits?"

"We can divvy. Walls and doors."

With five of them to split up, it didn't take long to cover the house, and turned into a bit of an adventure as there were some rooms Trolius had barely looked it, let alone used. Once of them was a storage room, which had some old signed posted from various shows the house's owner had worked on. These included a print of the poster art for the first dvd from the Batman Animated series that was signed by the entire cast. It was dusty, but the frame was in good condition, and the whole thing retained a strong sense of glamour.

"You should take that when you go," Lambert joked. "Or just fuckin' sell in on ebay and buy your own house in Langley."

"Yeah… I'm not stealing from Mark Hamill." Still, it was a pretty cool poster – it was a shame it wasn't up out in the house, but there were a lot of posters and only so much room.

"Suit yourself, missed opportunity if you ask me."

"No shit – I'm probably the only one here who was even the right age to watch that as a kid," Darian said. His considering frown turned into a sly grin as he raised his baguette towards Trolius. "Fight ya for it."

"Darian. Please. I am a trained knight." He grinned, batting Darian's bread aside easily and poking him in the chest with his own. "With any weapon. I don't really want to fight you or anyone else for Mark Hamill's personal memorabilia collection, but I will if I have to."

"What about just for funsies?" Trolius could sense, rather than see, the shit eating grin on Lambert's face, much as he could sense that the other Sidhe had raised his bread to the back of his head.

There was only one way to answer.

* * *

Annie was actually the first one out, because everyone else ganged up on her as soon as things moved to a more sensible venue (the back yard). Lam took out Lou, the closest next opponent, then managed to destroy both his and Trolius's baguettes in a spectacular explosion of crumbs. Darian, the last armed contender, was declared the king of the evening. After a brief acceptance speech, he promptly passed out on one of the remaining couches with the hope that having absorbed so much New Year's luck, he might actually manage some restful sleep.

By then it was late enough in the evening that some enthusiastic neighbors were starting to set off fireworks, and the others retreated to the studio. They channel surfed through coverage from a few different sources, and Trolius stepped out for a few minutes at eleven to take a call from his mother and sister. When he came back, the others were watching fireworks from Denver on the small screen.

He leaned over to give Lou a quick kiss before settling down on the floor at her feet.

"How's the fam," she asked, ruffling his hair as he leaned back.

"Good. They say ¡Feliz Año Nuevo to all. Rosa especially says it to Lam, though, if he is here, which I would neither confirm nor deny."

"Who's Rosa," Annie asked, while Lambert just groaned out a quiet, "Jesus fuck."

"T's little sister, who's obsessed with his hot friend from snapchat."

"She was snooping through my phone at Christmas. I don't even know how she got it unlocked." Trolius shrugged. 

"She keeps trying to add me with different accounts." Lam scowled. "It's getting real annoying."

"Sorry man. I told her you were with your girlfriend tonight, though, and then she went off to watch Matt's backyard fireworks."

"Well that sound fun, at least."

"Yeah – we're getting a pretty good show here too, from what I saw. Probably you'd have a decent view from the hot tub."

"Oh yeah?" Lambert perked up. "I did bring my suit this time…"

"Well, its all set up if you guys want to go out and watch them. We'll be fine in here."

"They are better live," Annie said, taking the hint and getting up off the crowded couch. "Come on, Lam. I brought mine too."

"Grand!" Lam took her hand, pausing to commandeer the bowl of grapes on the way out.

"Can't resist a challenge, can you," Annie teased him with a smile.

"Maybe I just want to make sure you get all good luck you deserve…"

The conversation was cut off as the door to the studio swung shut behind them, at which point Lou chuckled.

"Well played, babe."

"I know, I know, I'm real subtle." He twisted around from his position on the floor to smile up at her, leaning against her legs. "But they can go off and feed each other grapes and watch fireworks or whatever, and we can have the room to ourselves."

"For whatever?" She ran her fingers through his hair again, her sharp nails scratching lightly against his scalp. 

"Well you know… I thought we could ring in the new year with our own fireworks."

Lou smiled, leaning back and angling her hips towards Trolius as he moved into a proper kneel before her. "Sounds perfect."


End file.
